Norman Rehabilitation and Medical Center

Just before or during the birth of a baby different complications could be present, and
sometimes their effects are not visible at the time the baby is born, but such complications can
result in associated conditions that will affect the functions and daily activities of a child. Alan was
born on September 8, 1992 at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California.

The course of my pregnancy with Alan was overall normal, and full term. During labor Alan
suffered fetal distress due to his umbilical cord becoming tangled around his ankles. Therefore an
emergency cesarean section was performed. Alan was born with an apgar of 10. In general, the
apgar is registered twice for a newborn. This is at one minute and five minutes after the baby is
born. Apgar is the score developed by the anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar in 1952. It was created
to evaluate the physical condition of a newborn, and also to determine the need for any
immediate treatment.

By his first year of age Alan was doing most of the activities a baby his age was expected to do,
except walking on his own, and he had crawled in a different way. The pediatricians kept giving
us opinions such as "Every child is different, and even there are children who take longer to start
walking. You should not worry about it." Alan has always shown to be very intelligent. He was
very verbal and already talking fluently when he turned two years old.

Actually when he was evaluated by a Pediatric
Neurologist we were first very scared, but then
really pleased when we heard him saying:
"Your son is not normal. Alan is very bright"
This is true. Alan is currently in 9th Grade,
all of his classes are in the Honors program, a
program for academically advanced
students.

When our child turned fifteen months old we
noticed that he was walking holding on walls
and furniture around the house but not on his
own, therefore we took him for an orthopedic
consultation to the Children's Hospital in Los
Angeles. After an extensive evaluation and
X-rays we were informed that Alan had a
subluxation on the left side of his hip.

After this visit we were searching constantly for
the appropriate treatment for our son to help
him to start walking on his own. We visited several specialists, and when Alan was two and a
half years old, he had his adductor muscles surgically lengthened, this was intended for him to
walk. Alan had casts on both legs for eight weeks,and after the casts were removed he started
physical therapy. When our son turned three years old he learned again how to walk without
any difficulty (he was even running and jumping), but his gait was abnormal due to his pelvis
moved without coordination. At this age Alan was already speaking, reading, and writing English
and Spanish perfectly. By June 1999 Alan was evaluated in Mexico at the "Teleton Rehabilitation
Center" and in January 2000 he started therapy. Ever since he is evaluated every six to twelve
months and continues looking forward for his rehabilitation.

We continued searching. Alan has had many methods of treatment during the last eleven years
besides the traditional physical and occupational therapy. Just to mention some of them he has
had Horse back riding therapy, Dolphin therapy, Hydrotherapy, Osteopath, Magnet therapy,
and Chiropractic. But he never had one of the most important ones, this is Neuro
Developmental Treatment. Also known as NDT-Bobath Method. It was developed by a British
couple, the Neurophysiologist Dr. Karel Bobath and his wife Bertha, a physiotherapist. They
created a combined method of evaluation, and early therapy to evaluate and monitor the
normal development of a child.

In June 2005 we found the Spider, and Norman Rehabilitation and Medical Center. Of course
we made an extensive investigation as well as many questions about the program like any other
parents who have been searching around of all the possible methods of rehabilitation. After all
we set up a four week therapy session for Alan, and departed to Poland on July 30, 2005.
As soon as we arrived to Norman Center in Koszalin, Poland our experience in regards to the
conventional orthopedic evaluations was different. This time the consultation was impressive,
the treatment plan that was presented was intense, not easy, but possible. In this way Alan started
a therapy program specifically tailored for him that gave him three and a half hours of therapy
during six days per week.
The therapy started strengthening the center of gravity of our body: THE PELVIS.

We can not expect that our legs or arms function symmetrically coordinated if the center of
gravity is uncoordinated, weak, or flaccid. By the third week of therapy we decided to stay four
more weeks due to the efficiency of Spider, and also because of Alan's opinion when he noticed
the difference among the previous therapy programs.

Alan had such an obvious improvement in two months
that was never seen before in many years of therapy. His
posture is better, his trunk is stronger, and his pelvis is
aligned, therefore his gait has improved. Alan feels
confident as well as proud of himself. While I was
observing the achievement of my son in just a short
period of time I started talking about Spider to literally
everybody, our relatives, friends, patients, and families
with children with special needs. Afterwards Norman
Rehabilitation and Medical Center gave me the position
of their representative. I gladly accepted the proposal,
and now we share our experience with other families
that keep looking for alternatives in the process of the
rehabilitation of their children.

Now, as bilingual representatives of Norman
Rehabilitation and Medical Center we would like to give
our testimony and the necessary information for those
children with special needs who can have the
opportunity to give the first step in their rehabilitation
having therapy in Spider.